Teenage Depression and Boeing.

Dennis Muilenburg head of Boeing, salary $1.7m + bonus $13m (up 27% from last year) said, “safety is our highest priority.” But Boeing employees spoke of different priorities; stripping out costs, rush it through, lie to get it through the FAA tests. So was Muilenburg lying? I doubt he thought so. He was simply the top exec protecting his company and its shareholders, minimising damage and focusing on the positives: Any top exec would do the same. In law a company or corporation is treated as a person, strange when they don’t breath air or have human feelings. So it’s hardly surprising that top execs become imbued with the same ethic responding purely as a corporate entity; they become dehumanised. Lying would be a human failing and how could he have such a thing? The old film, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ was less sci-fi than a dreamlike recognition of this rise of corporatisation. And at the other end of the scale today’s teenagers suffer from something similar. They know viscerally they are human but at every turn they are diverted from it and frustrated at being unable to embody it. They become depressed, which in itself in the current medical model refutes their right or desire to be a successful human being. They are ‘ill’ and need a pill. Even talking therapies can’t really shift what is at root an external social malaise. They are the entertained generation perceiving life as little more than fame and celebrity, good looks and selfies. But like Muilenburg they didn’t start out that way. Bit by bit their very humanity has been reduced, blinkered by a million glossy mores. They wanted to explore but had to learn, they wanted to play but had to conform, they wanted to express but had to please, they wanted excitement but were given safety. They want to be proud of their achievements but they’re working in McDonalds. As a result, like Muilenburg they don’t have the language. Where he doesn’t know lies when he says them they can’t quite grasp what it is they’re missing.

Paddington 2 and our last chance to save the British way of life.

There is a huge difference between Britain and America. While the Marvel franchise make films of street-savvy muscle-bound all-American-heroes we made Paddington 2 featuring a young Peruvian foster bear. Both fast-paced action films with heroes and villains but where our villain ends up leading a song and dance routine in prison. Notice the zeitgeist difference, one ‘be afraid’ the other ‘be polite.’ Polite is almost negative these days but it encompasses many virtues, consideration, fairness, generosity and an implied equality where acting well benefits everybody. It’s become embedded in our English psyche from our long, often bloody history. America, barely 250 years old, founded on the hardship and struggle to master the land and its indigenous people is brash, expansionist and fearful of weakness. Comparing Spider Man and the Hulk et al with Paddington might at first appear not comparing like with like but considering these two different histories the comparison makes more sense. But Britain is in fundamental danger of being infected by the American zeitgeist and sucked into the ‘special relationship’ we supposedly have and is eschewing our bond with Europe and our long joint histories. We already have Trumpian Boris who like his mentor incessantly paints everything in outrageously glowing colours irrespective of reality, who has already lied and cheated to get into power. Like Trump he’s already filled his government with far right lackeys and like Trump he will promise sweeteners and reforms that will later dissolve. But with a no-deal Brexit Britain will become a powerless pawn in an American ‘trade deal’, a dumping ground for American products and American corporations to take over the NHS, elderly care etc. But even worse Britain will be infected with an all American fearfulness. To give up Paddington’s fairness, generosity and delight for Avengers: Infinity War would make me sick to my stomach and angry as fuck.